Romantasy is everywhere right now. Dragons, fae courts, morally grey love interests, spectacular special editions - and sales figures that have made the publishing industry sit up very straight indeed.
But what’s actually driving its extraordinary appeal?
In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, I take a deep dive into the rise of romantasy: what the term means, where the genre came from, why authors such as Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros have become publishing phenomena, and why BookTok alone can’t explain what’s happening.
More importantly, we look beneath the trend at the storytelling machinery.
Strong romantasy often runs on two interconnected engines: an external fantasy story involving danger, power, conflict or survival, and an intimate relationship story involving desire, trust, vulnerability and belonging. When those engines genuinely affect one another, the result can produce extraordinary narrative momentum.
And that principle has plenty to teach you even if the chances of a dragon appearing in your current manuscript are approximately zero.
Along the way, I explore yearning and delayed gratification, romance tropes, reader promises, emotional causality, world-building with consequences, series storytelling, “spice”, the dangers of decorative fantasy and bolted-on romance, and why bigger stakes aren’t necessarily better stakes.
You can also try a few simple exercises while you listen:
• Name the two engines in your own story: what is your protagonist trying to achieve externally, and what do they want emotionally from another person?
• Look for interaction: find a moment when something happening in the plot changes an important relationship - or when that relationship causes your protagonist to make a different plot decision.
• Identify the anticipation: ask yourself what your reader is currently waiting, hoping or dreading will happen, and whether your story is actively building towards that payoff.
There’s also a free companion workbook, The Two-Engine Test: A Story Development Workbook, which takes these ideas much further and helps you apply them directly to your own novel.
Download the workbook HERE.
If you enjoy the episode, please like, follow or subscribe to Master Fiction Writing wherever you listen. And if you know another writer who insists romantasy has absolutely nothing to teach them because their novel contains neither wings nor suspiciously attractive princes, send it their way. They may be surprised.
